


Memory, Memory

by theprodigypenguin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: Angst, Anniversary, Cemetery, Character Death, Comfort, M/M, Past Character Death, Post War, jeddy, memorial, minor Jeddy, very lowkey jeddy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 01:29:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18681370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprodigypenguin/pseuds/theprodigypenguin
Summary: Teddy visits his parents grave every year on the same day, but he always goes alone. This year turns out a bit different.





	Memory, Memory

There was a heavy humid feeling in the air around Teddy, the scent of rain on the wind and clouds blotching the sky, but it seemed to be akin to a crime that sections of baby blue could still be seen between the grey of the rain clouds. The weather was cold as the day was cresting past noon, temperatures dropping from the sixties to the high fifties, perfect weather for Teddy to slip on an uncharacteristic sweater.

It was an article of clothing he almost never wore, something he kept folded and tucked into a box he hid under his bed, pulling it out only when he felt at his worst. The color was faded tawny and gray, the sleeves worn and pulled until they're were irreparably stretched out, patches on the elbows and material heavy Welsh wool that fought away the biting chill in the air. Despite the cold, the buttons were undone, but there was a familiar black and yellow scarf wrapped around Teddy's neck, pulled over his chin and hiding his lips from view.

The stone bench he'd sat himself on was even colder than the air around him, but he had no intention of moving as he shoved his hands into the pockets of the sweater. He almost never wore it, never really had to wash it because of that fact, and that was both a blessing and a curse, because it smelt heavy of moth balls and dust, but also held a lingering scent of  _ something _ that Teddy couldn't quite place.

Something familiar, something he knew for sure he must know. The scent of the earth, of birch bark and leaves, rainfall and the bittersweet of chocolate. It made Teddy squint against stinging eyes and bury his face deeper into the scarf around his neck, trying to breathe in a different scent as he rolled old wrappers around in his pockets, scraps of paper and candy foils that no one had bothered to throw out in over twenty years.

_ Twenty-one, _ Teddy reminded himself,  _ it's been twenty-one years. _

Somewhere miles away, a brilliant family was hosting a birthday party for a girl named after victory. A family adorned with dominant redheads would be setting out a birthday cake and preparing a large supper to celebrate her twenty years of life. She'd open presents, hug her father and mother, spend time with her sister and brother and their cousins, all her aunts and uncles and friends. 

Halfway through the night she may look up, search for blue hair, ask where Teddy is, and maybe the room will get quiet, but someone will make a joke, tease her about her crush, and the night will continue as if Teddy hadn't been remembered at all.

He used to celebrate with them, he used to have fun with them, but the older he got, the meaning of this day started to change. Suddenly he couldn't fake a smile and enjoy himself, he couldn't even pretend he was having a good time. So he stopped trying. The meaning of this day was different to him after all. For them, this day symbolized victory, it symbolized the loss of a loved one and the birth of another. It symbolized the true fluidity of life, how one death always lead to new life.

For Teddy, this day symbolized the empty ache in his chest that had been growing bigger and deeper since the moment he looked from Victoire, Bill, and Fleur and up at Andromeda, asking why  _ he _ didn't have a mum and dad like Victoire did.

He supposed she wanted to tell him when he was older, but she answered him the best she could considering he'd been six at the time, confused as she explained his mum and dad had to go away. Teddy didn't get why, for the longest time, and it took Harry sitting down with him for the reality and truth to finally settle in.

Teddy didn't cry when he was told his parents were dead. He never knew them, so what he felt wasn't pain exactly. More like an echo that settled in his bones, that feeling you got in the pit of your stomach when you haven't eaten, that sensation that something was so clearly missing. The pain of it all didn't start to seep into the rest of his body until he was a teenager.

Hormones and angst, struggles and identity, through it all the only thing he felt was this anger he hid behind a smile. For a long time he wouldn't talk about his parents, and when Harry tried to bring them up, Teddy would be the one to change the subject, because he didn't want to talk about them. Why should he? They  _ left _ him.

The professors would talk about them sometimes, they would smile fondly and say he looked like them as if it was a compliment intended to make him smile. All he felt from those words was weight, heaviness he tried to heave from his shoulders by changing his hair blue and his eyes pink. Even then the weight found its way back to him in the form of laughter and a statement of: "You look just like your mother!"

He hated it. For the longest time he hated it. He hated hearing stories, he hated hearing their names, hated when people told him he looked like his parents. Yet he kept smiling, kept laughing, kept agreeing. Teddy didn't cope. He didn't deal with the emotional toxins roiling in his bloodstream and poisoning every inch of him. Until he snapped at sixteen, completely losing it.

Looking back he was grateful it had been with Harry and not his grandmother, who probably would have gotten even more upset with him for the bitter, hateful words that spewed from his mouth, his vision blurred by burning tears and his throat raw from his screams. Harry must have cast a silencing charm around the room to keep others from hearing, merely standing and giving Teddy the opportunity to be angry, to cry and scream and curse, until he'd worn himself ragged and his angry red hair faded to a tawny brown, his screams regressing to hiccups as the tears covered his cheeks.

Deducing the worst of it was over, Harry had approached cautiously, as if coming up on a feral beast, slowly encompassing Teddy into a hug and letting the teen cry into his shoulder.

"You're allowed to be angry," Harry had said. "I was too. It isn't fair what happened and never will be. It isn't fair that they're not here for you, and I am so sorry… so sorry I can't be them. I cannot replace them, but I don't want to." He pulled away to hold Teddy by his face, not laughing at the snot dripping from his nose or his red face. "Your parents were amazing, good, brave people, Teddy. They loved you so much, and I wish you could have seen it in person. They fought a war to ensure that you and countless others would not have to suffer like they did. So you wouldn't have to grown up in a war. They fought to protect you from a mad woman dead set on pruning the half-bloods from her family tree. Every breath they took, it was so you could live a better life than them. You're allowed to be angry they're gone, but you can't be angry forever. Get mad, then let it go, so you can remember how much they loved you, and not how much they've missed."

Harry understood, and maybe that was why Teddy was able to calm down.

"Does it stop hurting?" Teddy asked, and Harry gave him a sad look.

"It still hurts," Harry had answered. "I take the pain differently now though. I change it into pride." Teddy watched him with wide eyes as he tapped the button on his chest, the Auror badge. "Whenever it hurts I consider where I am, what I've been through, how much I accomplished, and I imagine how proud my parents must be of me."

Teddy's shoulder slumped heavily, sniffing. "You're an Auror though. I'm just stupid. I haven't done anything they'd be proud of. I'm not like you."

"That's not true," Harry chided. "They'd be proud of everything you've accomplished, even the little things. They'd be proud of your O.W.L. scores, and they'd be proud you became a Prefect. They'd be proud of you being a Hufflepuff and for generally obeying the rules, and in fact they'd probably be proud of the rules you'd broken as well." He'd squeezed Teddy's shoulder firmly. "It's a bizarre thing, to miss people you've never met, but it's not shameful. Don't dwell forever, and learn to live on how you want. That's what they would be proud of."

Teddy sniffed against the cold air, lifting a hand to pull his scarf over his nose, trying to fight the chill and blaming his watery eyes on the weather. Certainly they weren't from staring pointlessly at a lifeless headstone for the past hour. He didn't know why he did this, it wasn't like anything would have changed from how it was last year. The cold gray of the marble was the same, simple and almost plain compared to the other headstones in the cemetery, but people always said Remus Lupin was a very simple man. He wasn't outgoing or eccentric, he was quiet and classic, gave off a kind of peaceful energy that made people relax around him. The grave seemed to represent that softness, that simplicity that matched the simplicity of a man who had to be simple as a necessity.

His eyes bore into the stone so long he was surprised he hadn't created furrows in it, looking between his father and mother's names, at the pretty bouquet of flowers lying on its side in the grass in front of it, placed there earlier in the day by Andromeda.

Teddy tried to swallow a few breaths before managing to open his mouth and speak. "Hey mum," he greeted, trying not to feel like an idiot. "Hey da… I just wanted to come by, say hello. I'm sorry I haven't come by since… last year. Busy." He took another breath, blinking a few times. "Not much has changed in a year. Broke up with Vic, that's Bill's daughter, you know Bill. I guess I was just too busy, didn't have much time for her, or for friends I suppose. You'd probably be disappointed in me, huh dad? Friendship was really important to you. It's offensive of me to take advantage of my capability to make friends when you struggled with it, with people in general… when the friends you loved were lost one after the other. I'm really sorry, dad… if I'm disappointing you. Or you, mum. I'm trying really hard." He reached back to his chest, but there was no inner pocket in his sweater, so no badge to show off. "I joined the Aurors. Not because you were in it, mum, a lot of people have asked if I'm following you but I'm really not. I just… wanted to give my life meaning. You both died to protect this world, our world, what better way to honor that sacrifice than to protect it in your stead?"

He had to stop, his voice growing high and desperate, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths to calm himself down until he could speak normally again, reopening his eyes to stare at the names on the headstone.

"Uncle King used to say it always surprised him, and still does sometimes, that you fought in the war, dad. You especially. You died for a community that shamed you and asked for nothing in return. I guess because of James Potter and Sirius Black, and because of mum; you fought because you were loyal and wanted to protect your family. Not because you owed anything to these nasty people who hated you pointlessly and saw you as less because you were sick. You completely disregarded them and you still fought. I want to be like that too. Make you proud. I want to protect the people I love like you did, to find something for dying for. I wanna-"

"That's bloody  _ daft _ ya nutty tosser!"

Teddy jerked upright on the bench and turned sharply at the waist with wide eyes, watching as fifteen year old James Sirius Potter hopped up to stand on the bench beside him, hands shoved into a jean jacket and a Gryffindor scarf hanging unevenly around his neck.

"Jamie what the- How did you get here?" Teddy craned his head over his shoulder to look around the cemetery, expecting to see Harry or Ginny, but James seemed to be alone. "Don't tell me you apparated?"

"Course I didn't, but it's not  _ illegal _ to use the Knight Bus."

"You took the Knight Bus? Does Harry know?"

"What's he gonna do? Ground me?" James pulled his hands from his pockets and waved them. "Oh no I'm so scared I don't wanna be grounded."

Teddy rolled his eyes and tilted his head with a sigh before focusing back on James. "What are you doing here?"

"Come find you," James answered in a sentence that seemed bizarrely incomplete and broken.

"How did you know I was here?"

James looked down at him. "Bugger, Ted, where else would you be? You always come here."

Teddy was torn between demanding who told him and wondering silently how anyone would even known. Teddy normally just up and vanished around the same time every year, it wasn't like he left a note telling people where he was going. Was he just that predictable.

"You're predictable, Teddy."

Ah.

"What are you doing here? Did you just leave during the party?"

"They were playing a silly game, everyone was blindfolded so I snuck out. Al saw me, he was brooding in the corner as usual, but I told him he could borrow the cloak for a week at school if he shut up about it. Jogged to town and had a neighbor summon the bus, then came here." He hopped off the bench before Teddy could ask anything else, crouching down in front of the Lupin's grave and reaching out to brush away dirt that had gotten stuck to it. "I've never been here before, can you believe that? I've visited my grandma and grandpa tons of times, but I've never come here."

He stuck his hand out towards the stone as if in greeting, and Teddy was left watching silently as the teen introduced himself. "'Ello, we haven't met yet, but I'm James Sirius Potter! You both knew my old man, and my granddad too! That's who I was named after of course. Oh." He stood up, started searching his pockets. "Hold on, I brought something."

"Jamie," Teddy sighed, shoulders sagging and elbows on his knees, hands folded loosely. "You should go home. It's late."

"I'm not going to leave you here alone, idiot."

"What's wrong with it?" Teddy asked. "I'm used to spending time here alone."

"Sure, but that doesn't mean you have to like it." James pulled out a small pellet the size of a tic tac. "And it also doesn't mean you have to be alone. I'm sure you like talking one on one with them, but if you're by yourself for too long, especially in a cemetery, then you'll start hallucinating. Watch this."

He broke the pellet between his fingers, holding his hand out to show off the way it extended into a full bouquet of peonies and gladiolus.

"This is cool right? One of uncle's new creations for the shop, a pocket bouquet for those times you forget to buy your girlfriend or your wife some flowers on your anniversary. Or," he crouched down and laid the flowers out beside the first bouquet, "in case you pass by a grave and want to spice some things up, add some color."

"So you're an interior designer now?" Teddy asked, hoping James hadn't noticed the shake of his voice.

"We're outside, Teddy." He teased. "You're really bad at making jokes when you're sad."

"I'm not really…"

"Hey, come on." James sat down next to Teddy on the bench and held his arms wide towards him. "Come here, I give great hugs."

"Albus says differently," Teddy argued, but inexplicably leaned towards James and laid his head against his shoulder as warm tears cut down his cold cheeks.

He felt pathetic on an entirely new level, letting a fifteen year old comfort him like this, but so long as no one else found out then the humiliation probably wouldn't be that bad.

"You know it's okay, right? Crying? And it's okay to miss your mum and dad." James pet Teddy's hair. "I know I don't really get it, but I also know parents are important. Dad still looks sad sometimes when he looks at the picture of his parents, he keeps it on his bedside table and looks at it every morning, and he's super old now. I think you'll probably always miss them, but that's okay. That just proves your human."

Teddy winced at his words, wondering in irritation why some kid was telling him that. Clearly  _ someone _ had to tell him, but why this dumb kid.

"Oh, and you know, that bull you were spouting before I walked up, about wanting someone to die for, you're an idiot."

Teddy tried to pull away. "My dad-"

"Your dad didn't die because he wanted to, you know. He didn't meet your mum and go  _ ah yes, a woman I will die for. _ People don't work like that." He reached up and flicked Teddy's forehead. "You wanna make them proud, find a reason to live. Don't be stupid about it." Teddy just rubbed his forehead, pouting as James turned to face forward and unceremoniously flopped against Teddy's shoulder. "You smell nice by the way."

Teddy dropped his hand onto his lap and stared at the collection of colors from the flowers now decorating his parents graves. He blinked a few times when he realized that agonizing emptiness wasn't hurting as much as it had been before, slowly lying his head on top of James' and sighing.

"You should go home now," he chided, and James shrugged.

"Nah, I'll stay. We can go home when you're ready, okay?"

Teddy swallowed the knot in his throat and nodded. "Sure," he agreed, feeling feathers beat around his chest at the use of the word  _ we. _ "Sounds fine."

This was nice. Things didn't feel as lonely, wasn't as cold, and Teddy considered maybe bringing someone along with him next year when he came to visit. Maybe he'd even bring James. Probably James. If he didn't, James would likely come on his own. Best avoid that so they wouldn't get in trouble for James running off and Teddy going along with it. Yeah, that would be nice.

**Author's Note:**

> I felt it was necessary to put an author’s note at the end here, this way if no one wants to read it you guys don’t have to. One of the reasons I love Teddy so much is because a part of me really connects with him and empathizes with him. A lot of times when I read about Teddy thinking of his parents, he never goes through a phase of hating them, and in the books Harry doesn’t really go through that phase either. I guess there’s that one part where he’s angry at his dad for being a fuckboy, but that was different, and one may argue there wasn’t enough time to get angry and no reason to, buuuut you’re wrong.
> 
> I never got to meet my dad, and he died before I could get the chance, and when I was younger I went through this phase where I was just angry at him for leaving me, abandoning me, because I was a kid and I didn’t understand. Getting angry and being upset because you don’t have what other people have, you don’t have the same family as so many people, is normal.
> 
> I’m twenty-two now (well I will be next Wednesday) and I’m not mad anymore, but I still feel sad sometimes, I still cry if it gets really bad, I still feel empty when I look at pictures of my dad and mourn for the relationship I won’t ever be able to have with him, or with my mom, and that’s normal, and I wanted to put my personal anger and growth into this memorial fic as an ode to the kids out there who were ever angry at their parents for dying.
> 
> You’re not alone and it’s valid to be angry with them. Just don’t be angry for ever. Things get better, things start to hurt less, and that hollowing pain in your chest will turn into another strength you can utilize into a living a life that would make them proud.
> 
> Happy 21st Anniversary of the Battle of Hogwarts!


End file.
